Black children get fewer antibiotic prescriptions

Data on more than 200,000 children who visited doctor's offices in southeastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey showed that black children were about 25% less likely to receive an antibiotic prescription for respiratory infections than their non-black peers. However, researchers found that black children were less likely to be diagnosed with conditions that would require antibiotic use, including tonsillitis, compared with non-black children. The findings appear in the journal Pediatrics.